Chronicles of a Business Journalist | Believer of the African Dream | Mother | Lover of Live| Poet

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

That word "commitment"

My after work life has become rather predictable lately, other people would probably call it boring, but since I am the author of this blog, it shall stay as I say.

Predictable.

Great, so we are on the same page.

I leave work between 1730hrs and 1800 hrs. If it’s not a Tuesday, when I go for my Mizizi class, then I go home, do my 20 minute jog, some extra minutes of simple exercises, play with Imani, that’s my 3 yr old daughter, make dinner, which we have early, at around 1930hrs before she goes to bed at 2000hrs.

That’s when my “me time” begins. If it’s Monday it’s desperate housewives on Series, then Quest means business on CNN, then off to bed, to read, write, think, regret, make plans, dream, sleep, or count the sheep in my mind as I search for sleep. Other times, mostly Friday’s I catch up with a friend over a drink, usually quite predictable one too, it would be either Lizz, Monique, Shep, K.A, Wanja, or my Bestest boy-mate, Kent.

Tonight; Tuesday, my Mizizi class ended late and I found my daughter asleep. I got the last of quarter of Quest, before my hero Christiane Amanpour did her thing. Today, for some strange reason I switched to Aljazeera, and the first picture I see is that of a black child, a boy about 3 years old with no eyeballs. I stayed on and listened to the narration by a film maker in the Sudan who was following the life of children at an orphanage, There was him, the boy who got fitted with plastic or glass eyeballs as the main story, with little knick knacks of daily life at the home.

The filmmaker followed the story of the boy who was born with good eye sight, but got ill and doctors took out his eyeballs, one after the other, but as he grew, it began to affect the formation of the bone structure between his head and the eye balls, and as days went by, the film maker slowly got drawn in to this orphaned child, and it became increasingly difficult for her to cover the story.

At the same time, Kadmallah, a few weeks old baby girl was brought in, dehydrated, and the nannies tried to keep her going, she stayed at the orphanage a for a day, on the second night she was taken to hospital, the next day she died.

I cried.

I could not stop feeling a deep pain inside my heart for this child whose only need was a good hospital that could put her on a drip early enough.

We have failed as a continent to provide healthcare to the poorest of the poor, and now innocent children, who could be the ones shaping our future are left to dry out in cold hospital beds…too days too late.

The Film maker could no longer separate the story, from behind the camera, with this boy whose future was in the woods. She is now in the process of adopting the baby boy.

“The witness” on Aljazeera got me asking myself questions on what I, as an individual can contribute to creating a better tomorrow for someone else. That someone could be the person you have employed. The house help, the gardener, the maid, the driver, your parents up country; we keep asking the government to do something about everything, but we can and should also do something.

I would like to ask you for a commitment to better your country. If you can forego something this coming month, and assist your employee get medical care, you will have done one thing in making your country a better place. NHIF is a just a phone call away.

For ONLY Ksh 1920 (25 USD) per year, you will have made medical care available to someone who badly needs it. If you would rather encourage the person to save, then do it, as long as an individual earns more than 1000 shillings (12 USD) per month, encourage them to give Ksh 160 ( 2 USD) per month to the hospital fund, to cover them and their dependants, this includes bed, drugs, maternity and even surgery(check here)

Make the choice to make Africa a better continent; it has to begin with someone.